


The Tetrahex Letters

by Martin Iceworth (Iceworth)



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: M/M, POV First Person, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-05
Updated: 2014-12-05
Packaged: 2018-02-28 05:21:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2720207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iceworth/pseuds/Martin%20Iceworth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unaddressed, unsent, unspoken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Tetrahex Letters

**Author's Note:**

> This was written between #31 and #32, and so branches off from before we discover a certain survivor.

I hurt you, once.

You came in. Frustrated. Disillusioned. Humiliated. You butted me with your fist. So I left you, whimpering, on the floor.

You were stupid, I thought. What a fool you were, to hear a story and jump to assume you knew everything about a four-million-year-war just from a few sentences, I thought. You deserved it, I thought.

I know better, now.

You are not stupid.

You are never stupid.

—

I almost did it again, once. You decided we would play host to movie night. You never consulted me.

The alarms cut across me before I could roar my protest.

Rewind died. Chromedome’s howls of grief filled the bridge.

Rewind had such a little, tiny body. One that could easily slip between the door. Minibots like him can always get themselves into small spaces. Into trouble.

I never lost my temper again, and with my anger's absence, you flourished.

—

You are young in spite of your age. You are naïve. You are overly trusting and quick to jump into things.

You do not belong in this world. You do not belong _here_. When I say that you droop as if it’s a failing, the others scoff at me. _Getaway_ scoffs. 

Every bot on this ship is a soldier, except for you. You crow about glory, about saving the people you love, without realising that it means staring their deaths in the eye. You aim a gun at Megatron’s head without thought, eager to save the day again. To belong _here_ , in this world ruined by war. 

 _You_.

You, this one remnant of what we used to be, of the wonder and light-filled days we once had. You, with your innocence, your purity unmarred by war. How I try to protect you from it. But you brush off my concerns and you wear your badge straight, just as Ultra Magnus wanted. Why do you want to jump into the fight? Why are you so desperate to destroy yourself, to scar yourself, never to recover or heal like every other fool on this oversized shuttle? Do you want to be like Chromedome, shut away in his habsuite for cycles on end? Like Swerve, who fears the silence so much his speaking never ceases? Like Magnus, who seizes any control he can in an iron grip in a world made chaotic by our own actions? Do you think they are unscarred? Do you think any of us are?

During the recharge cycle, you laugh at me. You express surprise at pretty colours, become buoyed by a single smile from a friend, chatter on about Brainstorm’s briefcase. Your spirit soars on the slightest breeze, but the others struggle to stay aloft even with the most powerful gale spurring them upwards.

When they recharge, they have nightmares of death and decay and cry out in their sleep. When you cry out, it's because of cruel words spoken to you six million years ago. One day, you will miss those echoing words and wish they were louder than the screams.

 _You do not belong here_.

Why would you _want_ to?

 —

You sit on your berth, humming to yourself as you tinker with something in your fingers. Your hands are always busy, fiddling with something or other, bits and pieces of scrap metal joined to make nonsense shapes that make sense to nobody but yourself, little things you hide under your slab or obscure in your hands. The only creation you’ve ever shown the world is the one on my forehead. Sometimes, when you are gone, I forget not to touch it.

I watch you, quietly.

You understand me, by now. _Never stupid_. You glance up, tilting your head in a way that makes my spark ache. “Cyclonus? What's wrong?"

I frown at you.

I know better than to tell you what is on my mind. To tell you would only drive you farther away.

You wander from me, but I cannot let you go too far. I must remain here, prepared for — anything.

This could kill you.

It likely will. In peace time it was suspicious enough behaviour. After a war — death, death, only death.

Getaway is no friend of yours. I know it.

And I will not tell you. I will protect you without controlling you.

“Nothing,” I say.

Your optics narrow into a frown — _never stupid_ — but you know better than to press. Soon, the tension bleeds from the room, and you grow reabsorbed in your task.

Long afterwards, just before recharge, you interrupt my meditations. “Cyclonus, look!”

I activate my optics.

A small metal creation sits on the palm of your hand. It is long. Sharp. 

“Do you like it?” Your optics sink a little. As I take it from your hand, your digits tap together in an anxious pattern. I can already see the coolant congealing in your optics, ready to spring a leak.

I turn it over. It is my sword. Lumpy, full of flaws, but a fresh beginning. Like you. I run the tip of a digit over it, and turn it over again, inspecting it from every angle.

You relax and laugh, your optics brightening again. You clap like a sparkling. “You like it!”

_Never stupid._

—

I hate him.

For all I keep myself impassive and blank, everyone knows it, especially him. I wish he was stupid; instead, he is smart, and enough so to use this. _People are only just now starting to appreciate you!_ he crooned like one of Blurr’s fans, making you bow your head, pleased. Slowly, he drives the wedge between us deeper.

I had had enough, and left.

Tonight he is here again, buzzing over your shoulder, making you overheat with his unsubtle stream of compliments. Your vents whirr to keep your temperature under control. I can feel the heat emanating from your head as you hide your face again after yet another dose of his poison.

You are not stupid.

But you are naïve, you are a fool, and you yearn for approval. You yearn to belong with these warmongers who would gladly kill you for their redundant cause, then thank you for letting them do it.

_Why do you do that?_

Whirl watches from the side of the room. I catch a glint of a shanix from the hands of a bot next to him, and he hides a claw under the table. His single eye catches mine.

Whirl does not come over. 

For now, he is satisfied to watch and wait.

If he has bet on me, then he knows me well enough to win.

If he has bet on Getaway’s survival, then that is up in the air. That will, in the end, depend on you.

I already know you will forgive him.

—

I jumped your spark with my own. I sang to you as you lay dying. I kept the shards of your broken vial, still gleaming green, and gave you a piece of myself in return when the time came. I wear your creation on my head. I stood between you and _Megatron._

Still, you do not understand.

I am your slave. You would only have to breathe a command and I would fulfil it. If you would have me find the Knights myself, I would. Carry you about the ship, I would. Endure hosting movie night with Whirl as a guest, I would.

Let you make friends who are bad for you — 

I would. _I will not control you_.

I wait.

— 

I have a plan already; let him be. There is little he can do on a ship in peace. Let you be, let you speak to him, let him speak to you. It is your right.

But I stay close. I watch you carefully every time you return from Swerve’s — alone, now, always without me, now — and in a crisis, I keep you close so he cannot take advantage. He sticks close, too, but it is my hand on your shoulder, and my words guiding you. He follows. He waits to do — whatever he wants to do.

I will not let him.

He does.

And when the alarms blare, when your coolant leaks in betrayal, when you keen from the pain of the wounds he gave you and I lift my blade and you say _no_ — 

I am your slave.

I let him go.

—

“See?” I overhear Whirl say not long after. “Putty in his servos. _Told you_. Now, pay up!”

— 

I thought I could save Cybertron, once. 

For a short amount of time, I thought I could save you.

I know better now.

Chromedome is a shell of a bot, with four pieces ripped away from his spark. He wanders about, hollow, if he stirs from his habsuite at all. That will be me, one day. It almost already is, because I know its inevitability.

How I understand inevitability.

I will be your Conjunx Endura one day; that, too, is an inevitability. I see it in your optics, in the language of your metal body, the way you look at me every time my digits brush your chasis. Those touches are supposed to be too subtle to notice, but you always notice, and your optics always glow a little brighter, as if I’ve touched you to your spark.

You will be the one to ask me, first, before you fully understand. I will say, _not yet_. You will walk away, the rejection a gentle ache without its barb. You will wait, silent. 

One day you will understand, and then I will ask you. You've already given your answer, with every look you give me and every gesture you make.

I will outlive you. 

I _must_ outlive you. The burden of going on alone would destroy you. You, with your innocence and naïveté, you with the only purity left in any Cybertronian. War has ripped everything from me and shredded what remains, but I survived. Many others have not. You would not. You could not go on without me.

I will not tell you this, because you would disapprove. I have gone over six million years without you, I would say, who are you to think I couldn’t live a day with you gone?

You would disagree.

You would be right.


End file.
